January 2009 Archives

I was just reminiscing (or should I say daymaring?) about my life in Chi-Town & then found online--finally--the group (& the song) that truly got me through the complexities of living there before Mark came into my live.

In the Twin Cities (and elsewhere in the US), public school administrators (particularly those belonging to poor and working class schools) are encouraged and given "protocols" for walking through their school buildings. When this is a practice that needs to be encouraged, instructed, and mandated; it truly shows how public education now relies on the corporation as a model for best practices.

Look at the list of handouts and forms that the Oregon Reading First Center at University of Oregon feels necessary to provide their school "leaders":

• Walking the Talk: Powerful Instructional Leadership Through School and Classroom Walk-Through Visits presentation

• Five Minute Observation form

• Classroom Walk Through Checklist

• Walk Through Tally Sheet

• Walk Through Follow-Up presentation

• Follow-Up handouts: Look Fors and Non-negotiables

The concept of a short "observation form," tallying, and "Look Fors" is utterly ridiculous and it makes those of us who consider ourselves educators look like complete fools. This is, quite plainly, business discourse. And the education wave of the last 30-35 years--with the onslaught of NCLB, privately sponsored, de-unionized charters, and vouchers--has been to model public not independent schools after business.

"President Obama was joined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and 16 retired generals and admirals in the Oval Office as he signed the executive orders" to close the CIA's secret prisons and torture chambers at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Doug Mills/The New York Times, 22 January 2009

PRESS MEMORANDUM - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:
Catherine Compton
Third World Press
773-651-0700, ext. 25

CHICAGO – (Jan 7, 2009) – Veteran political activists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn will be speaking on their newest book, Race Course: Against White Supremacy at 6 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, at International House, 1414 E. 59th Street, Chicago. Publisher Haki R. Madhubuti will also speak about publishing the book, which he helped inspire the former Weather Underground founders to write.

This is a rhyme

Of ancient time

Of matters and things actually not so forgone. This is a contemporary story, a sort of verse, perhaps even plain doggerel.

Of a certain old woman who lived . . .

Eight hours drive from Wall Street.

How can the following be possible (rhetorical question)? A "progressive," elite ($18,000 tuition pre- and lower school, $25,000 middle and upper school) PK-12 independent school over 100 years old "needs" and then obtains a "benefit" concert. The US economy has collapsed, the US has weakened the global economy, the veil has been lifted on neoliberalism, and a private school gets a benefit concert.

This "benefit" is being provided by Sheryl Crow. The concert will not benefit the school's financial aid fund; it will benefit the school's *endowment.